Friday, June 4, 2010

Yesterday I read Tamura Jones'article about the MyHeritage Awards fiasco. I must say, I felt a little... besmirched.

For the record:
I am on that list and I received, and replied to, an email from MyHeritage prior to the list being published.

The email from MyHeritage included the following statement:

We were hoping to simply list you among the winners on our website, and to offer you a html badge to display on your website. There's no pressure with this, so if you don't want to have a badge on your site then you don't have to do that.

My interpretation of the message was that I could choose to participate or not. If I chose to participate, then they would send me a badge which I could choose to display, or not. There was no obligation. It was unclear if you had to reply to be included.

I did think it odd that they would send the email. Why not just issue the awards? Why seek permission to say you liked what someone was doing?

The thought crossed my mind that (although the message read very much like a form letter) I may have been contacted in advance because I had an email exchange with MyHeritage last November, initiated by them. They asked me what I thought of their site. Initally I ignored the message but they asked again - so I told them. I expressed some serious concerns arising from an incident a few years ago. I won't go into those concerns as in that November correspondence I felt that they took me seriously, looked into all that I said, and provided a plausible and possibly even reasonable explanation of what had happened.

After some thought, I replied and said that they could list me and send the badge code, but I may not display it.

When the list was published many of my favourites were included.Quite a few of them reacted with surprise at being listed. I don't doubt them. I wonder how widespread those emails actually were? It all seemed like a bit of fun, so long as you didn't take the name too seriously. My 'acceptance speech' post was intended to reflect that view. I decided to put up the badge for a while on the basis that, cynical marketing exercise or not, I thought there were many great blogs on the list. I've taken it down now that I've learnt what it may do to my reputation!

Can anyone recommend a good tarnish remover for the corners of my blog? ;-)

3 comments:

My Geniaus blog was on the MyHeritage list and was chuffed to find myself there. When I received the initial email from MyHeritage telling me they were going to put my blog on a list and offering me a badge I didn't take much notice of it and ignored the message.

I was surprised when a few days later I found my blog listed in their Top 100. I was pleased, not just for myself, but for genealogy in Australia as there were a number of Australian blogs on the list. With our small population base we have a hard time getting noticed and noted in other 'best' lists that tend to feature North American blogs.

My Google Analytics reports show a spike in site visits around the time the awards were announced. I imagine this was the case for the other Aussie blogs listed. The MyHeritage Award has helped in telling the world that genealogy is thriving downunder.

I don't know how many emails they send, probably a few more than there are badges.There are 7 lists with 425 badges in total.That is a lot of genealogy blogs that are less than really top according to MyHeritage.There are currently 1644 blogs in the Genealogue's Genealogy Blog Finder.

I don't know how many emails they send, probably a few more than there are badges.There are 7 lists with 425 badges in total.That is a lot of genealogy blogs that are less than really top according to MyHeritage.There are currently 1644 blogs in the Genealogue's Genealogy Blog Finder.